The Rat and the Northern Star
Author's Note: * = see chapter footnotes Ah, the first chapter's real long. But the rest should be fine x.x Prologue They say the silver star wanders between worlds, searching for those who are lost and guiding them towards their fate. But the star has granted wishes before. These happen only at Christmas, where the hopes and spirits of the beings of the world are at its highest. It does not obey Twoleg gods. It will make the dreams of the lost a reality. There was one miracle granted by the star that tore through reality. It is a tale of love and lost and trust that will be told many times by many different cats in many different parts of the world. Which miracle will it be? ~ ~ ~ "Peut-être que ce sera un rat ..." "おそらくそれはねずみになります..." "P e r h a p s i t w i l l b e a r a t..." Chapter 1 - Rat under the Stars The stars were still noticeably luminous that night when we walked together past the stark lights of Twoleg nests, our paws scraping against the hard, icy ground the Twolegs walked on. It was always like this in any Twolegplace. Twoleg babble echoed through the whole place. But at this time of year, they always started to hang annoying little balls of light everywhere. My companion, Night, and I were only passing through this particular Twolegplace, but the noise already filled my ears and made my head throb. Despite the strange Twoleg object I draped around my shoulders to carry what little prey and medicine we had, I was freezing. Night walked on with unusual grace; he seemed almost happy, and his black pelt was only ruffled slightly by the cold wind. My grey one didn't blow sideways at all. It clung to my bones like a wet leaf. Having only concentrated on how cold and hungry I was, it was no wonder that I soon tripped over a tree root sticking out of the icy ground. “Agh!” I exclaimed, but Night had turned his blue eyes away from me, like his usual idiotic self. Just look at me for once! My eyes followed his gaze against my will. With a shock I realised there was a limp, white lump of fur a few fox-lengths away. I bounded to catch up with Night as he broke into a run. “Hey, Night! What are you going to-“ My voice was cut short as the lump of a cat sprawled out in front of us moved slightly. “Are you okay?” Night mewed, his voice raw and husky from the cold. The cat lifted their head like it was a dead weight and gradually opened their eyes. I froze. They were a rich magenta, bordering on red. I had seen cats with all kinds of colouring, including myself with my grey eyes and crosshatched-shape scar, but this cat was something else. Although this cat's eyes were the eyes of the weak, they trapped me. I shuddered involuntarily, and hoped Night would assume it was because of the cold. “Rat, this cat is hungry. Get a rabbit leg for her.” Her? So it was a she-cat? The thought made something in my stomach crackle unpleasantly. I was a she-cat too. But Night hadn't stopped for me. Just then, I noticed the cat, however thin, had a worn blue strip of Twoleg material around her neck. A collar. “Are you kidding, Night? It’s our only piece of prey for two days and we don’t need to waste it on some good-for-nothing kittype-“ “Now, Rat,” Night growled. “Give it to her.” Why was it that he could only be assertive at times like this? I didn’t want to fight him, as much as I would have liked to claw his face off right then and there. The truth was that these places were best not walked alone, and Night was my friend, more than anything. Or maybe, just maybe, he was... I made a ‘tch’ sound through my gritted teeth and shook the thoughts out of my head. I leaned over, slipped the bag off my shoulders and carefully unfolded it to reveal a shrivelled lump of fur. I threw it at the she-cat’s feet. Night didn’t notice. He rested his tail on the she-cat’s shoulder. “What’s your name?” he asked gently. “Sakura,” the she-cat replied, looking at him from under her pale eyelids. She bent her head down to take a ginger bite dof the rabbit. Her collar let out a rusty jingle, and I flinched. “My name is Night,” my black companion mewed. “This is Rat,” he added, flicking his tail towards me. Night jerked back in surprise as Sakura hauled herself to her paws. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Please follow me. There is a good place to sleep around here.” “No, thank you!” Night exclaimed. “We’ve been looking for a place to rest for quite some time now.” He leaped to his paws, somehow still keen and full of energy. Was there a cold glint in those seemingly helpless eyes? ~ ~ ~ It was cold under the Twoleg nest. I was used to sleeping in dirty places, but the whole place was filled with the stench of the noisy beings above. Moonlight shone in from the right, where a small hole would allow us to escape into the night. “Rat, are you okay?” he asked in a gentle voice. This voice had come to irritate me more than anything else. He was the reason why we were hungry. He had given food to that mouse-brain who probably wouldn’t survive another night anyway. I was forced to curl closer to him to keep warm. I didn’t want to rely on Sakura whose soft breaths resounded from beside me. “I don’t trust her,” I mewed quietly, reluctantly telling him my thoughts. “Rat, you don’t trust anyone.” “There’s a reason for that,” I snapped, a little too loudly. I checked to see if Sakura was still asleep. Sure enough, her eyelids lay closed. Far more quietly I added, “Remember the day you found me? My own brother tried to kill me. You’re so naïve. You always forget what I went through.” “I remember,” Night replied calmly, irritating me even more. “You still don’t know anything.” “I know myself, and I consider myself to be a trustworthy cat.” Night trained his eyes on me in the moonlight. “Even if you only need me and won’t accept anyone else, that’s okay. I will never break your trust. Because…” He paused and his whiskers twitched as if he was uncomfortable. He noticed me staring earnestly at him and his face relaxed a little. “Because?” I prompted him. “Because I love you, Rat,” he breathed. Every hair on my pelt rocketed skyward. Night had never given off the slightest inclination that he was any more concerned with me than a friend would be. And now he was suddenly saying this? I uncurled myself from him and stood up slowly, ignoring his eyes pleading for an answer. My whole body was shaking. Maybe... I had ended up realising my own feelings. And if that was the case, I was going to have to do something about it. Cats who love end up becoming dead cats in the cold winter. “I trusted you,” I hissed, my muzzle moving on its own. “I didn’t ask for you to love me. You’re only going to end up getting hurt when I’m gone." "Rat..." Night began cautiously. "And I don’t want to be tied down to you either. You're always such an idiot." "Now, now, that's not exactly-" "I wish we had never met!" And there it was. The one thing I could never have taken back, out in the open. At that moment, everything was hurting. The cold hurt. The pain in my paw quite obviously hurt. But the thing that hurt me the most, you ask? It was the silence. The silence that told me I needed to break free once and for all. I slipped out from under the nest and ran into the snowy night. I wish he had called me back. I wish he had told me, "I don't know how you feel, Rat, but I... ~ ~ ~ "Je suis heureux de vous avoir rencontré! きみ出会えてうれしい! I’m g l a d t o h a v e m e t y o u!"** That was exactly how I felt. And I hated it more than anything else. ---- **Oh, the reference. With a character named Rat, I just had to make it. *troll face* Kudos to you if you know where it's from. Chapter 2 I didn’t know how long it had been since I fainted. I think that it was the morning light that was turning the insides of my eyelids to a sickening red. That meant I was still alive, at least.I had survived the night, and leaving Night. Leaving Night. The thought struck my chest with inexplicable pain. Suddenly the urge to leap to my paws wasn’t as fierce. How? How would I live without him? It seemed overdramatic, but the truth was I didn’t just rely on Night emotionally. I relied on him for not just necessities, but emotional support. He was my emotional support, in its entirety. What was with all these questions? When would I start getting the answers, for once? Category:Fanfiction